Interesting to get down to legal specifics of the actual Australian Law on war and dual citizenship that we are discussing:

If Section 35 of Australian Citizenship Act 2007 http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2009C00251/70de7279-68b5-47da-b28f-67b17cb51817 :

"35 Service in armed forces of enemy country
(1) A person ceases to be an Australian citizen if the person:
(a) is a national or citizen of a foreign country; and
(b) serves in the armed forces of a country at war with Australia."

Do Courts or Judges have a say in "(1) A person ceases to be an Australian citizen." If so under what Law and Section?

Should section 35 cover enemy fighters who do not represent an actual country which therefore cannot be in a state of war with Australia?

CM: If you seek to defend Calley and his men,

Where did I say “I” defended Caley & his men. I said that Caley & his men used the constant sniping & killing of his men every time he went outside the wire as the trigger for what happened. That is not defending him. You are trying too hard. He & his men snapped as a result of that constant sniping. Of course I don’t expect you to understand they sort of pressure these men were under.

Maybe if you went to work every day driving a bus full of people & every day at one particular stop someone at one at that stop kills one of your passengers. The people at that stop won’t stop the person or point to who is doing it. The Authorities just tell you to keep taking the bus out 7 ignore the killings. Every day you MUST take the bus out on the same route & you know you are going to lose a passenger.

Do you think you would be under pressure to convince the people to give the murderer up? What means would you use to convince them? What would you do? You HAVE take the bus out. You have no choice. Would you say, “It’s nothing to do with me & keep taking the bus out, or would you sort the Bus Stop out?”

CM: you must similarly defend the men and women of the various insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, , after attacks by Western liberal democracies for decades.

I guess you have failed to get my point on purpose. I was talking about the atrocities committed against the civilian population by these Terrorist groups. You have tried to sidestep the argument.

Why haven’t I heard you or others condemn the terrorist for the mass killings of civilians. We hear News of atrocities every day & are met with stoney silence. Yet one Westerner goes off the rails & the uproar is deafening. Why is there no uproar from you & your breathern about those atrocities?.

//When I mentioned professional soldiers and police it is those people I was thinking of: the well-selected, well-trained, well-led Australian professional soldiers and police. I also referred to 'normal' to hopefully ensure no-one would run off with rare exceptions and unique conditions.//

I have no doubt that is the case. Nor do I doubt that the staggering majority of police, retired police, soldiers and veterans are decent blokes who would hate the thought of killing anybody, let alone killing a lot of people in a short space of time.

Nevertheless it would seem that soldiers and police are more likely to commit these sort of atrocities than the general public. At this point it is helpful to remember that correlation does not imply causation.

Hi Plantagenet,
I understand you are a complex and multifaceted person, but if that wasn't you, who was it cobber? I am a fan of your short snappy one liners - are they yours or your alter-egos?

Toni Lavis, "Nevertheless it would seem that soldiers and police are more likely to commit these sort of atrocities than the general public"

Thanks for getting to the nub of your concerns.

If we exclude governments - the most likely offenders where mass killing and other nasties are concerned, I reckon the dangerous types are the intelligent, usually well-educated young men who have grown up in a comfortable environment and become angry when 'authority', 'government' or 'society' do not give in to their wishes.

Here is an Australian example where luck intervened to greatly reduce the loss of life (premature detonation of a planted bomb sadly resulted in the death of refuse collectors),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hilton_Hotel_bombing

In countries where tribal hatreds have gone on for years the military and para-military can be expected to carry out the abuses and blood-letting traditions with ferocity. That is the cultural inheritance. Not cultural traditions we would want to import.

Dear Jelly Baby

You may think me a visionary, nay a soothsayer - but I'm a man. I'm just a man.

https://youtu.be/lS2nX4fuzqc?t=1m10s

Your Savant

Pete